KARACHI, May 30: The Water and Power Development Authority and the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation on Tuesday held each other responsible for power crisis in major parts of the metropolis in the small hours.

The KESC has been getting 370MW electricity through the newly built Hubco-Baldia link, which was suddenly switched off around 4:30am. Sources in the KESC said that no reason was cited by the Wapda for the abrupt power suspension due to which a crisis-like situation persisted in Karachi.

Some senior officials of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation contacted their counterparts in Hubco to know about the closure of the power link. However, Hubco officials told the KESC that it was an independent power producer supplying electricity to Wapda and hence it was not answerable to the KESC. The officials of the KESC switchboard room contacted their counterparts in Wapda, who said that there was no light and they did not know what had happened.

Member Power of Wapda Mohammad Anwar Khalid said: 8220gThe fault developed somewhere in the system of the KESC due to which our transformer at Baldia grid station had tripped. We were not at fault.8221h

He said that Wapda officials switched on the transformer after a while but the link could not be switched on again unless a clearance signal was received from the KESC. 8220gWe received clearance signal from the KESC at around 11:15am and we switched on the link accordingly,8221h Mr Anwar added.

Meanwhile, the KESC announced on Tuesday that it is carrying out system improvement work at Baldia, Nazimabad and Defence.

It stated that power supply to these areas may be interrupted on Wednesday between 10am and 5pm.

The areas to be affected included Toheed Colony, Baldia, Raees Amrohi, Raja Tanveer, Sadiqabad, ANP Chowk, Mufti Mehmood, Mubarak Chowk, Sectors 12-E, 17, Eid Gah, Madina Mills, Shabbir Hospital, Afridi Chowk, Khyber Chowk, X-10 Bus Stop, Karim Khan, Asif Industry, Saeedabad Sectors 4A, 4B, 4C, 8A, 8C, Ahmed Raza Masjid, Royal Children Academy, But Chowk, Ali Chowk, NLC Colony Sectors 9C, 9D, 9E, 9F, Yaseen Masjid, Sector 11-A, Korangi Industrial Area, Sector 7A, DHA Phase-I, Nazimabad 2, 4, 5, 3A, 3H, Aurangabad.